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tr1pisSports 1,510 views 2:38 Are You in Good Hands? - The High Calling - Theology of Work Topics Copyright By Mark D. Roberts. Published by The High Calling, September 5, 2010. Image by Cindee Snider Re. Theology of Work Project Online Materials by The High Calling are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License . You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), and remix (to adapt the work), under the condition that you must give appropriate credit to The High Calling, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You should not suggest in any way that The High Calling or Theology of Work endorses you or your use of the work. © 2014 by The High Calling and the Theology of Work Project, Inc. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ Are You in Good Hands? Daily Reflection / Produced by The High Calling Share My future is in your hands. Dear Friends, During the month of August, I’ll be on vacation with my family, and then I'll take a few days for study and writing leave. In order to allow this time to be a true break from my normal work and also to provide you continued access to these Daily Reflections, I have decided once again to run a “greatest hits” series. I did this last August, and it seemed to work well for you. Each day, there will be a reflection mailed to your inbox and posted at TheHighCalling.org . It will be something that I have written during the last several years. I hope and pray these reflections will be helpful to you in your relationship with the Lord and in your effort to live out your faith each day. I’ll be back with fresh reflections on September 6. Thanks for your understanding and continual encouragement. May the peace of Christ be with you!

Mark I can still hear the television commercial’s promise echoing in my memory: “You’re in good hands with Allstate.” In fact, this slogan was created by David Ellis, the general sales manager for Allstate Insurance Company in 1950, along with the familiar logo of two hands holding a car. Since 2004, Allstate’s advertising campaign asks the question: “Are you in good hands?” So, are you? Are you in good hands? I’m not thinking here of whether your personal property is adequately insured. Rather, is your life in good hands? Is your soul in good hands? Are you relying on protection and strength from something—better, someone— who is truly reliable? I’ve been a Christian for forty-five years, a pastor for the last twenty-one years. You might think I’d be able to answer the questions I just asked affirmatively. Surely there have been times when I could truly say that I rely fully on God, that I have placed my life in his hands.

But I must confess my tendency to slip out of God’s hands so that I might put my faith in something else, like my job, or my family, or my insurance policies(!), or my country, or my investments. It’s not wrong to trust these to an extent. But if I find my sense of security in something other than God, then I have set myself up for disappointment, because they will inevitably fail. When I consciously and consistently put my life in God’s hands, when I live each day with the knowledge that I am relying on him and living for his purposes, I feel extraordinary peace. I am set free from fear of things I cannot control. The fact is that you and I will only be in “good hands” when those are the loving, strong, trustworthy, tender, protective, nail-scarred, gracious hands of our Lord. QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: So, are you in good hands? Are you living each day with an awareness of God holding you? PRAYER: O Lord, how good it is to entrust my life to you, to place my future, my hopes, my fears, indeed, all that I am, in your hands.

Thank you for protecting me, guiding me, empowering me, healing me, and holding me. I am truly in good hands when I entrust all that I am to you. Help me, dear Lord, to live each day “in your hands.” When I am tempted to trust something other than you or when fear threatens my confidence, keep me in your hands. All praise be to you, gracious Lord, for your good hands! Amen. Email Signup Topics Copyright By Mark D. Roberts. Published by The High Calling, September 5, 2010. Image by Cindee Snider Re. Theology of Work Project Online Materials by The High Calling are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License . You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), and remix (to adapt the work), under the condition that you must give appropriate credit to The High Calling, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You should not suggest in any way that The High Calling or Theology of Work endorses you or your use of the work. © 2014 by The High Calling and the Theology of Work Project, Inc.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ Seattle Bicycle Lawyers Article: Are You Really in Good Hands with Allstate? Rules of the Road Are You Really in Good Hands with Allstate? Insurance company mottos attempt to reinforce a sense of security: “You’re in Good Hands With Allstate”, “Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is There” and “Nationwide is on Your Side.” Insurance should provide security against unexpected problems. The question is, are you really in Good Hands with Allstate? For that matter, how much Like a Good Neighbor is State Farm? And, is Nationwide actually on your side? Here is one example of how Allstate uses its “Good Hands.” A Seattle-area woman was severely injured when a car ran a stop sign and hit her minivan.

Her seatbelt failed and she flew out of her vehicle. She suffered severe head injuries which resulted in blindness in one eye and the loss of sensation in her lips, forehead and scalp. Allstate’s adjuster offered $25,000 to settle this claim. The woman accepted the offer even though she had over $75,000 in medical bills. Allstate’s release made the woman sign away her right to pursue any further recovery. Because her seatbelt failed, the woman had a potential claim against the manufacturer of her minivan (which was later recalled because of the problem). The woman eventually filed a lawsuit against Allstate alleging (among other things) that the Allstate adjuster was improperly practicing law. Advising a person about the effect of a legal document is practicing law. Allstate is under investigation in many states regarding allegations that its employees are illegally practicing law. This case was one of the first to use a copy of Allstate’s internal claims manual outlining its policies. Allstate attempted to prevent the information in this case from being discussed, lest people wonder if they really are in “Good Hands.” The King County Superior Court, however, recently unsealed some of the case documents.

Allstate’s claims manual is an interesting document. It contains role-playing guides on how to deal with people who are not represented by attorneys. It discusses Allstate’s findings that attorney “represented claims settle for 2-3 times more than unrepresented claims.” Whether or not Allstate’s statistics are correct, it goes without saying that Allstate would prefer to settle claims for less rather than more. No lawyer should promise 2-3 times higher settlements simply because of representation. The internal documents are certainly not guarantees. They do suggest, however, a corporate policy to discourage people from seeking legal representation. Allstate’s claims manual is at times explicit: “Regular follow-up claimant to reduce the need for attorney involvement.” “establish a trust-based relationship” with the injured person. “We will move . . . to more customer-focused goals such as % of claimants who remain unrepresented . . .” Allstate has carefully crafted the movements of its “Good Hands.” According to an internal discussion guide, “it is critical that deviations from the recommended script are not advised”. Any insurance company that settles thousands of claims a month understandably would want to do so as efficiently as possible. This efficiency is rarely in the interest of the injured person, however.

Without a good attorney, injured people do not have access to information or the full power of the courts. Anderton Law Office actually is on your side. At Anderton Law Office, we provide “power to the people.” We tenaciously and ethically represent a client’s individual interest, not the interests of a corporation. You ARE in Good Hands... WITH GOD You ARE in Good Hands... WITH GOD Psalm 104:24-28, 33-34 "O LORD, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions; this great and wide sea, In which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. There the ships sail about; and there is that Leviathan Which You have made to play there. These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season. What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good. ...I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

May my meditation be sweet to Him; I will be glad in the LORD." In the Name of Jesus Christ, In whose arms we find shelter, Dear Fellow Redeemed, "You're in good hands with Allstate!" -How many times have you seen that commercial? The big insurance company tries to inspire confidence by picturing a huge set of hands, gently cradling a house, or a car, or a family. The message you're supposed to get is that when you buy homeowner's insurance, or car insurance, or life insurance from this particular company...you'll be protected and safe. They'll watch over you and take care of you, and you'll never have anything to worry about. Wouldn't it be nice if that were true? -If you could plunk down a certain amount of money and be completely protected from all of life's unpleasant surprises? Unfortunately, no insurance company can do that. For one thing, the insurance industry is on rather shaky ground at the moment; some say they may soon go the way of the Savings and Loans. Besides that, even the best insurance policy doesn't really protect you, does it? It doesn't prevent tornadoes, or car wrecks, or the sudden loss of life.

It just pays you some money when it happens. No matter how slick the advertising...when it comes to real security, those "good hands" aren't really all that good! We Christians, however, have a different source of security: our gracious and all-powerful God. And our text for today uses nature as an illustration of just how solid that security is. If you're a worrier, if you suffer from anxiety attacks, if you have even the smallest shred of insecurity about your future - then have I got Good News for you! In the words of our theme: "You ARE in Good Hands... WITH GOD" I. His wise hands created you. II. His provident hands support you. This is a very stately and awe-inspiring psalm. In it, the psalmist is acknowledging God's great wisdom, His gracious providence, and His almighty power. But as you read it, you can't help noticing that it's also a very joyful psalm. It sounds as though there should be an exclamation point after every sentence! Obviously, there's something here that almost overwhelms the psalmist with joy every time he thinks about it. What is it, I wonder?

What is it about God's wisdom and power that should make every one of us believers click our heels with happiness? Well, everything this passage says about God, and His relationship with His creation, also tells you something about yourself, and His relationship with you. The message is that you're in good hands with God. In the first place, because His wise hands created you. The story is told of a science professor who constructed a planetarium - a precisely scaled model of the universe. One of his students was impressed, and asked him who built it. "No one," said the professor. "Come on," said the student, "who made this fantastic piece of precision work?" "No one," said the professor, "it just happened." The young man became confused and angry. His professor told him, "Well, if you can leave this classroom and look at the wonders of nature and believe that they just happened, with no creator, then you can also believe that this piece of precision work just happened, with no creator!" The Bible is right when it states that only a fool could believe there is no God. In our text, the Psalmist says, "O LORD, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.

The earth is full of Your possessions." To really be an atheist, you have to ignore literally a world of evidence. The wisdom of God is clearly seen in all the things He has created. Think for a moment how incredibly complex and varied are the creatures God made. One scientist estimated that if you wrote down the genetic code for a single mouse, it would fill six whole editions of Encyclopedia Britannica. And that's just a mouse, a minor land mammal. Consider the sea, says the Psalmist, the oceans that cover three-quarters of our planet with teeming biological diversity! "This great and wide sea, In which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. There the ships sail about; and there is that Leviathan which You have made to play there." If a mouse is a wonderful creation, what about the millions of sea creatures? What about Leviathan - the whale? Each of these creatures demonstrates the unapproachable wisdom of the God who created them. Wisdom that makes human scientists and their technology look like a bunch of kids playing with tinker toys! Why is this especially comforting to Christians? -Because it means God's hands not only created all these creatures, they also created you!

In another place the psalmist says, "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well." -- Psa 139:14. Consider your own body: your eye, more precise and accurate than any camera; your hand, more flexible and articulate than any robot; your brain, infinitely more complex and powerful than any computer! And then remember that it's the Lord who created you and gave you these abilities. Whenever you stand up in church and say, "I believe in God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth," you're also saying, in the words of Luther's explanation, "I believe that God has made me with all creatures, giving me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my faculties." You ARE in good hands with God, because He created you. And He knows you, right down to the numbered hairs on your head. Yes, it takes quite a stretch to believe that there's no God. But it takes even a bigger stretch for a Christian to doubt God's providence! Think about it.

Can it be possible that the God who created you - the God who knows what's going on right now in the tiniest cell in your body - can it be possible that this God will ever forget to give you what you need? Will He ever neglect you or overlook your needs for a single moment during your life? Because if that were possible, then we would truly have something to worry about. If God's providence were an off-again, on-again thing, then we'd have very good reason to be anxious about what tomorrow will bring! Well, if you DO think that's possible, then the psalmist has another lesson for you. He takes us back to the sea, and all the hoards of God's creatures that live there. How do they make it from day to day? That's easy: "They all wait for You, O Lord, that You may give them their food in due season. What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good." Ah, I see - the Lord invariably provides for whales, but once in a while He forgets about human beings, is that it?

God feeds the sharks and the squids and the flounders, but He neglects His own dear children?! What nonsense! Do you see now how silly it is to worry about tomorrow? Worse than silly - it's a sinful denial of the grace God has promised us in His Word. Jesus said, "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ...Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things." -- Mat 6:26,31. My Christian friends, cheer up! Sing to the Lord, rejoice with the psalmist, and be glad - because you are in good hands with God. His provident hands, the hands that constantly support the rest of His creation, also support you. He's going to make sure that you meet that next car payment, that your bills get paid, that there's never a day when you can't put food on your family's table.

How can you make doubly positive that the Lord will provide you with all these things? Because He's already given up something far more precious for you: His only Son. It's precisely because we are sinful, doubting, unbelieving creatures that God sent His Son Jesus to earth. Jesus fulfilled the Law in our place. He died in our place on the cross of Calvary. And when He died, Jesus erased every sin and disobedience and transgression that you and I have ever committed. With His own precious blood, Jesus wrote your name and mine in the book of eternal life. With the sacrifice of His Son, God promises that we are now reconciled to Him. Instead of being His enemies, we are now His own dear children, whom He watches over and cares for more faithfully than the most loving earthly parents could possibly care for their children. Can He possibly fail in His care of us? Can He possibly overlook the smallest need that we feel in our lives? Never! You are in good hands with God! Paul asks a question that needs no answer: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" -- Rom 8:32.

Would you like to live a life that is truly "care free"? Would you like to insure for yourself and your family absolute and permanent security? You can, you know! That security doesn't lie in any earthly insurance policy, but it does lie in our Almighty God. My prayer is that you may find shelter - not necessarily under the Traveller's umbrella, but under the umbrella of God's grace and love. Even if you've got a piece of "the Prudential rock", let your real confidence is founded on the Rock of Ages. Go ahead and put your car insurance into the "good hands" of Allstate if you want to. But when it comes to your eternal future, make sure you put THAT...into the truly good hands of your creator God! AMEN. ONE THING IS NEEDFUL Are You In Good Hands? - The Texas Observer Are You In Good Hands? How home insurance companies in Texas ripped you off—and why it might not happen again. Rep. John Smithee Rick Perry was talking tough. It was August 5, 2002, and the Texas governor had been joined at a news conference in Houston by John Cornyn, the state’s attorney general.

They announced to the assembled reporters that the state had sued Farmers Insurance, one of Texas’ most prolific writers of home insurance policies, for deceptive trade practices. Cornyn’s office had been investigating the home insurance market, where premiums had ballooned out of control. And now the state had made its first case. “The investigations are still ongoing, but the findings reflect that at least one company-Farmers Insurance-has engaged in unfair, discriminatory practices to charge consumers excessive and unjustified rates,” Perry told the press. The company, Cornyn added, “has put its own financial gain ahead of the well being of Texans. You don’t do that in Texas.” But, of course, they had been doing it. In 2002, Texans were paying, on average, the nation’s highest rates for homeowners insurance. That was an impressive feat, given that prices for homes in Texas lagged far behind those in California, New York and Florida. In the previous two years, the state’s big insurers had jacked up premiums. Insurance companies said they were bleeding money from too many expensive claims. But they also had ruthlessly exploited a loophole in state law that allowed them to raise rates unfettered by regulation.

While Perry and Cornyn had ostensibly come to Houston to announce a civil court filing, the political overtones were obvious. The two Republicans were on the November ballot-Perry running for his first full term as governor and Cornyn aiming for the U.S. Senate-and with Election Day just three months off, home insurance had become the 2002 campaign season’s top issue. Texas homeowners were seething. They wanted their rates cut fast. It was a particularly perilous issue for Perry. He was favored to win. But his Democratic opponent, Tony Sanchez, had seized on the crisis and begun a populist call for stricter regulation that would force the insurers to lower premiums. He hammered Perry for sitting idly by while rates climbed. Sanchez’s campaign was clumsy at times-he named his campaign bus the “Lower Rates Express”-but Perry clearly saw a dangerous political issue. The governor quickly devised his own reform plan and began criticizing the industry’s greed. Perry, an avowed free-marketeer, seemed an unlikely politician to crack down on big insurance companies. Texas Republicans have long found common cause with the insurance industry against Democratic-leaning trial lawyers, and Perry had received more than $1 million in campaign contributions from insurers at that point in his career.

Yet at nearly every campaign appearance, the governor promised to re-regulate the market and slash premiums. “If the industry hasn’t figured this out, listen up,” Perry told reporters at one point in the 2002 campaign. “Texans are fed up, and I will sign legislation that prevents a handful of companies from bringing the state to its knees. I am offering solutions that put Texans first. I call on the industry to do the same.” Six years later, Texans are still paying the highest rates for home insurance in the country. The industry has earned billions more than it would have if stricter regulation had been imposed, according to consumer groups; in 2004 alone, the added profit was $4 billion. In 2006, Texas insurers enjoyed one of their most profitable years on record. The problem wasn’t inaction. Perry and the Legislature passed a sweeping, complicated reform bill in 2003. But the legislation was crafted largely by lobbyists for the insurance industry, imposing the lightest possible regulation. The state remains nearly powerless; insurers in Texas can raise rates by simply notifying regulators. In January, the Legislature will once again take up home insurance.

Six years after siding with the industry, lawmakers will have another chance to fix the system. While the insurance companies will almost assuredly run a similar play-wouldn’t you?-the political environment appears to have changed. Some key legislators are already talking about the need for more regulation. The 2009 session may be consumers’ best chance for meaningful reform in a very long time-assuming history doesn’t repeat itself. On August 21, 2002, just two weeks after Perry and Cornyn filed their lawsuit, representatives of the largest insurance companies in Texas, including the big four of Farmers, Allstate, State Farm, and USAA, received a fundraising letter from Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business (TAB). The business group was stockpiling money for an ad campaign that would deliver four million mailers to aid a slate of 22 Republican candidates. The mailing campaign was part of a highly coordinated effort, fronted by then-Congressman Tom DeLay, to capture the Texas House for the GOP and elect Midland’s Tom Craddick speaker. The highly partisan Craddick was a controversial choice. His backers knew they would need a supermajority to install him.

To elect that many Republicans would require a lot of campaign money. For that, they turned, in part, to the insurance industry. Hammond’s letter made clear why big insurers should support the Republican slate: “While this program is costly, there is no doubt that this is a real opportunity to make a difference in the political climate in Austin.” The industry responded. Insurance interests accounted for $237,000 of the $1.7 million worth of mailers attacking Democrats that TAB sent out in the months before the election, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman. (Spending corporate money on campaigns is illegal in Texas, and TAB and some of its funders would later be indicted for their actions in 2002, as would DeLay.) Farmers ($150,000) also contributed money to DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority. On Election Day, nearly all the candidates backed by the DeLay operation won, boosting Craddick into power at the head of a 26-seat Republican majority. In all, big insurers in Texas spent at least $1.1 million in the 2002 election to support Republican legislators, Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

This was highly out of character. Insurance interests have rarely played such a large role in Texas campaigns. But in 2002, the industry badly needed friendly politicians in power. Home insurance rates in Texas had begun to rise sharply in 1999. The excuse was partly a rash of mold claims filed across the state. But the industry had also lost a bundle in the stock market when the tech bubble collapsed. Consumer advocates had seen this before: when insurance companies lose big in the stock market, they invariably try to cover the investment losses by raising rates on consumers. And in Texas at the time, the industry could gorge itself on rate hikes because of a quirk in state law known as the Lloyd’s loophole. This gets complicated-as is often the case with insurance policy-but essentially state law at the time left a certain type of insurance policy, known as Lloyd’s policies, unregulated. These were policies originally meant for homes that had unpredictable risk, perhaps because of their high value or because of where they were located. Once the secret got out, though, nearly every insurer in Texas began shifting as many homes as possible into Lloyd’s policies to escape the reach of state regulators.

By 2002, about 95 percent of home insurance policies in the state were unregulated. And like teenagers who had suddenly escaped their parent’s supervision, insurers hiked rates-in some cases doubling premiums. With the insurance market in crisis, some level of reform was inevitable. The market would have to be re-regulated and the Lloyd’s loophole closed. The political environment demanded it. The open question was just how stringent the new regulatory structure would be. Many Democrats were touting forced rate rollbacks. They also wanted a reform package that would empower the Texas Department of Insurance to approve rates before companies could put them into effect. This approach is known as “prior approval.” For the industry, it sounded as pleasant as dental surgery. Big insurers much preferred the plan that Perry put forth: “File-and-use.” Under this system, insurers can raise rates without approval and simply have to notify regulators of their premium increases. Proponents say file-and-use allows the market to set the rates and improves competition, which, they say, leads to lower premiums. Not long after Election Day, it became clear that insurers would have big sway during the upcoming legislative session.

In November, after Craddick claimed the speakership, he appointed a transition team, three men who would serve as gatekeepers to the speaker’s office throughout 2003. Two of those men were political consultant Bill Miller, a Craddick confidant who was a spokesman for Farmers at the time, and Bill Messer, a lobbyist for State Farm. The insurance industry has always exerted influence at the Texas Capitol, but the past five years, beginning in 2003, have perhaps been the zenith. The handful of consumer advocates who lobbied for stricter regulation during the 2003 session recall being run over. The insurance industry had several hundred lobbyists working on its behalf, an army of influence peddlers who had little trouble winning over free-market Republicans, many of whom had been elected for the first time thanks in part to insurance money. The GOP leadership stacked the insurance committees in the House and Senate with industry-friendly Republicans. Stringent reforms proposed by some Democrats went nowhere. Instead, the main reform legislation-known as Senate Bill 14-sailed through.

The bill re-regulated the market by closing the Lloyd’s loophole but also instituted the more lenient file-and-use approach favored by Perry and the Republican leadership (not to mention the industry). When SB 14 landed in a conference committee to reconcile it with the House version, the industry’s reps got their way even more. Several consumer protections were stripped out. (Consumer advocates say the conference committee was stacked against them. Then-Rep. Joe Nixon, a Houston Republican, was included on the committee, though he had worked little on home insurance during the session. It later came out that Nixon was negotiating with Farmers on a mold claim on his own house at the same time he served on the conference committee that was designing a regulatory framework for the company.) “The way I think of file-and-use, you’re really playing catch-up with the insurance companies,” says Ware Wendell, an Austin lawyer who represents consumers in insurance cases and worked on insurance issues for Rep. Steve Wolens, a Dallas Democrat, during the 2003 session. Under SB 14, if the Insurance Department concludes that a company has been overcharging, it can take that company to court to win rebates for customers.

The idea, says House Insurance Committee Chairman John Smithee, the Amarillo Republican who sponsored SB 14, was “to make the first line of defense the competitive market, but when that didn’t work, to have a safety valve where you’d have some adult supervision where the commissioner could step in and regulate.” The problem is that even when regulators have challenged insurers, they have found it difficult to force companies to surrender their profits. Since 2003, a few companies have reached settlements with the Insurance Department after regulators took them to court. Allstate, for example, settled a case in May for $51 million for overcharges in the past four years. More than 700,000 consumers will split rebates worth $37 million. That’s a whopping average of $53 each-not much, considering that the average annual premium in Texas tops $1,200. Allstate also agreed to lower rates by 3 percent. (In 2007 alone, Allstate raised rates 6 percent.) Meanwhile, Perry and Cornyn’s lawsuit against Farmers was quickly settled in 2003 for $117 million.

About $82 million of that amount would be paid back to consumers. The largest home insurer in Texas, State Farm, has never been forced to lower rates. The company and its team of lawyers have battled the Insurance Department in court for four years now. In the latest ruling this fall, State Farm won an appellate decision that sent the case back to square one. It remains in doubt whether the company, which handles 30 percent of the state’s market, will ever reduce its rates or be forced to pay back overcharges. “If they spend a million, two million in legal fees along the way but they save 100 million in overcharges, that’s a winning economic proposition,” Wendell says. The details of insurance policy are nearly incomprehensible to anyone but the most committed. But the end results are easy enough to judge. Did the rates drop by the 12 to 18 percent the industry promised during the debate on SB 14? No. SB 14 did have some positive effects. More companies began writing home insurance policies in Texas, though they make up such a small percentage of the market that consumer advocates say true competition doesn’t really exist.

In 2003 and 2004, many companies did reduce rates a little. The Insurance Department reported that by 2006, 35 of the 37 companies in Texas had cut rates, though some by only a few percent. But two of the biggest insurers, State Farm and Farmers, didn’t lower rates at all, and together they make up about 40 percent of the market. In all, rates dropped about 4 percent by 2006, nowhere close to the reductions promised by the industry. And in the past two years, some homeowners have seen their rates tick back up. In April 2008, State Farm announced an increase of nearly 3 percent. Farmers implemented a 10 percent increase in October. Looking at the market as a whole, rates have roughly leveled off since 2002, says Alex Winslow, director of the consumer advocacy group Texas Watch. Premiums are just a tad below the 2002 levels that helped fuel the insurance crisis. But Texas still leads the nation in homeowners insurance rates: The average premium is $1,200 to $1,300.

The only state even close to that level is Louisiana, with average premiums of $1,100. The national average is about $800. While it was touted as “re-regulation,” SB 14 also deregulated insurance policies. Before 2003, insurers offered only a handful of plans. Now companies sell a wide range of complex policies. The industry argued in 2003 that not everyone needed a “Cadillac” plan, and that more options in the market place would fuel competition and drive down prices. But Winslow says that the new insurance policies simply offer less. With rates remaining mostly constant, Texas consumers have continued paying high prices for less coverage. The policies have become so complicated that most consumers don’t know what’s in their plan. The complexity makes it nearly impossible for average homeowners to comparison-shop. Even the experts have trouble. “If you ask me what endorsements I have on my policy right now, I couldn’t tell you,” says Wendell, the consumer lawyer.

“They send you one piece of paper at a time, saying your policy has been changed to endorsement E-1743, and you’re trying to ask yourself, ‘OK, what does that mean?’ I think choice is great, but you can easily become paralyzed by it.” The industry loves it. With Texas homeowners receiving less coverage, the insurance industry has paid out less and less money in claims. Even with an occasional spike following Hurricane Rita (and presumably Ike, though the numbers aren’t public yet), Texas insurers were paying out an average of $400 worth of claims per policy in 2007, down from nearly $800 in 2001. Remember that the average premium is more than $1,200. Everything between the $400 paid out in claims and the $1,200 received in premiums is profit-which translates to roughly $800 in profit on average on each homeowners policy in Texas, minus overhead, according to calculations by Texas Watch. So it’s no surprise that insurers want to maintain the system. Industry groups argue that the file-and-use approach is just beginning to take effect and should be given more time to work.

They also contend that high premiums are needed to cover the costs of major weather disasters in Texas. But other large states suffer weather catastrophes, and homeowners still pay much less for insurance. “Every time I turn on the TV, something apocalyptic is happening in California,” says Wendell. “You have hurricanes brutalizing Florida. And yet their rates are not what we have in Texas.” Floridians pay an average of about $1,000 per premium. In California, it’s $800 to $900. In both states the homes being insured are, on average, far more expensive than those in Texas. For his part, Smithee, the man who carried SB 14, believes the system has created a more competitive market, but adds that insurers have clearly overcharged consumers in recent years. Smithee has tried to balance industry needs with those of consumers but sometimes finds himself outvoted by industry-friendly members on his committee. He says that Texas’ severe weather does lead to higher rates. “We’re always going to be at or near the highest in the nation,” he says.

“Our losses are just so much higher than other states’.” But he concedes that the regulation laid out by SB 14 wasn’t strong enough. “We can’t just turn this whole market loose and say it will work on its own,” he says. “It will probably work most of the time. But in those times when the competition doesn’t work, the consumer is very vulnerable.” In 2009 when the Legislature once again debates homeowners insurance, consumers will have an all-too-rare chance at genuine reform. In the two legislative sessions since 2003, Speaker Craddick made sure that few reform bills escaped the House Insurance Committee to come up for votes in the full House. But next year the dynamic will change for two reasons. The House is more closely divided, meaning Craddick may not be speaker, which may give Smithee more leeway. More important, the Insurance Department is undergoing sunset review, the regular process by which the Legislature examines state agencies. That ensures that an insurance bill will move through the Legislature. Many Democrats and Republicans, having heard from angry homeowners in their districts, are pushing for more stringent regulation.

With foreclosures on the rise in Texas, many lawmakers realize that reducing consumers’ insurance bills may allow more folks to keep their homes. Several lawmakers have indicated they will try to pass a prior-approval system. In September, state Sen. Juan Hinojosa tried to convince the 12 members of the Sunset Committee to recommend a prior-approval system. The measure lost, but by just one vote. The sunset panel’s recommendations will be the starting point when the Legislature convenes in January. Where the debate goes from there is anyone’s guess. Consumer advocates would like a prior-approval system. They also want the number of available insurance policies reduced and the state’s insurance commissioner to be chosen through election instead of appointment by the governor, a change that has worked well in California. Smithee is advocating a compromise plan. He wants to strengthen the Insurance Department’s hand but worries about the dangers of too much regulation, which, he says, could drive companies out of the market. Smithee would prefer a hybrid approach in which most companies must obtain prior approval for their rates, but the Insurance Department could shift select insurers (who have proved good actors) into a file-and-use system to spur competition.

Not surprisingly, the industry wants even more deregulation, which Smithee says would be a “big mistake.” The insurance industry’s influence hasn’t diminished. It will once again employ some of the most skilled lobbyists in the Capitol. And much will depend on who wins the House speaker’s race. As Winslow of Texas Watch points out, this is consumers’ best chance at reform since 2003. Insurers “are always going to have pull,” he says. “But this is as good a [political] environment on this issue as consumers have seen in a long time.” Investigative reporting for this article was supported, in part, by a grant from the Open Society Institute . Dave Mann is a former editor of the Observer.

Question: Are you in good hands?
Answer: Allstate